Quantcast
News

Gamers Still Not Crazy for Digital Games

Written by Barry Villatoro

It appears as if gamers are still not ready to go fully digital. While many welcome the idea, there seems to be something keeping many from going the full digital route. From a report through the NPD, it seems that gamers, even when preferring digital, still buy a physical copy of a game.

Gamers that prefer digital games over physical, still play far more physical copies of games over digital. Also, the increase from players that prefer digital, to actually playing more digital games, has increased a little more than 30%. From a piece of the report:

Question: What percentage of console digital players are also playing physical games on their consoles?

Answer: 67%

Question: What percentage of console digital players are playing more digital games on their consoles than they did a year ago?

Answer: 37%

The report shows that gamers that prefer digital games are still very much interested in physical copies of games. Additionally, the gamers that prefer digital also stated that buying more digital games had no effect on their buying of physical games.

This could lead to a number of questions as to why gamers that, even though they prefer digital, still buy physical. A couple of reasons I can think of right off the top of my head, would be; The size of hard drives available on consoles compared to the size of games, as well as, download speed. You may save much more time heading down to a GameStop, Target etc, to buy your game instead of waiting for the download.

Do you prefer digital games? If so, what is it that may be keeping you from going the full digital route?

About the author

Barry Villatoro

Twitter : @IamWeapon | Former citizen of Azeroth and Atreia | Favorite fighting game - DefJam: Fight for New York | Favorite RPG - FF6 | MMA | Sushi | ATV's |

3 Comments

  • There’s also bandwidth caps – KZ:SF and BF4 are 40-odd GB downloads, and that’s only going to rise. Even without the bandwidth cap, if it’s a game I’m likely to go back to (like KZ) then it’s much quicker to re-install from the Blu-ray than it is to re-download 40GB again! Once they get the infrastructure in place that download is as quick and easy as physical, then it’ll be all good (I’m mainly digital on Vita these days, as the game size is much more manageable from a download time/bandwidth perspective), but as long as it’s quicker and easier (and often cheaper on console) to go physical, it’s hard to turn down!

  • There are some people who rightfully don’t want to be forced to pay for a license of a game even if that is the only way to get the game. Speaking for myself I’m still upset over the digital-only release of “Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Duel Destinies”, I still refuse to buy that game even though I have enjoyed the previous game. There is major factor here and its physical ownership, that’s why nobody should be surprised to see people reject digital sales.

  • When the HDD space runs out then what? When Next years release on our annual games hits shelves, then what?

%d bloggers like this: